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WESTERN & SOUTHERN OPEN

August 18, 2016

Andy Murray

Cincinnati, Ohio

A. MURRAY/K. Anderson

6-3, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. How is the shoulder? Looked like it was a bit sore to begin with. Got better during the match.
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I mean, that's kind of how it's been. I had similar sort of thing during the clay court season. It was kind of the same, where beginning of the matches just a bit sore and stiff.

Gradually warms up as the match goes on.

Q. Have you picked up a cold now?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah. Yeah. I actually think I picked it up in Rio but only started kind of feeling it on the flight when I was coming over after my match.

Actually think like I probably sound worse today, but I think it's starting to come out now. I sound worse but I feel better.

Q. With the shoulder and the cold, what keeps you motivated this week? You're the highest ranked guy left in manage this tournament now. Do you feel this is an opportunity for you?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, yeah, I mean, I think as well obviously since Wimbledon if I didn't play here, wouldn't have played any ranking tournaments through to the US Open.

If I want to keep trying to push up the rankings and go higher, I need to try to do well throughout the whole year and not just take sort of six weeks. Like Indian Wells/Miami period earlier this year. That hurt me a little bit.

Yeah, I just want to come here and just give it my best shot. I'm not putting too much pressure on myself this week because of the way the preparation was and everything and the way I've been feeling the last few days.

Just trying to go out there and compete. Obviously have a lot of confidence just now, so when the big, important moments come I'm playing some good tennis.

Q. People talk about the benefits of having a strong tennis IQ. A lot of people describe you that way. Some coaches would also say you don't really want to be thinking out there the on the court. Where do you think you fall out there on the court? Are you thinking a lot or try not to think at all? What's the balance?
ANDY MURRAY: It depends what you are thinking, to be honest. I think if you're thinking about how to win the match and the game plan, I think that's positive.

I think if you're thinking about technical things and stuff like that, I think that's not a good thing.

You know, you want to be thinking about where you're hitting the ball and placing the ball, and if you trust your shots you're able to commit to that. If you're thinking about technical stuff as you're trying to hit the ball you're going to make mistakes.

I think it really depends what you're thinking.

Q. Penn balls here. Big difference with the ball changing again. How much of an adjustment is that to you?
ANDY MURRAY: Well, I think it's not great for the body, you know, for wrist, elbow, and shoulder. Obviously in Rio playing with different balls there, Wilson Aussie Open ball there. Here we're playing with Penn and then US Open ball.

It's something players have spoken about for quite a while, having a bit more consistency with the balls.

You know, like the hard court season it's a similar ball, and clay court season the same ball throughout. I think people want to see the best tennis each week, and if you're changing balls all the time, the matches at the beginning of the week won't be as good because players are having to make quite significant adjustments.

If you asked a golfer to play with a different ball every week they'd be hitting the ball too far and too short depending. It's not easy.

Q. Just wondering how much, if at all, you've used any data analytic stuff in practice. In Indian Wells they have sort of Hawk-Eye technology. Have you used any of that, and do you think it would be useful for a player of your level?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, I think it can be. I haven't used it. I haven't used that much. I use heart rate monitors and a thing called a Catapult which measures speeds and distance that you're running.

Obviously you can see in a best-of-five-set match how much you run against the top players. So therefore, you know, if you have a Catapult on you can measure that whilst you're training a bit and gauge if you're doing enough or similar to what you might do in a best-of-five-set match if you're doing a tough training session.

I've used that, but haven't used one of those courts that has the cameras everywhere. I think they're good. I think especially for coaches and for younger players as well I think it's a very good tool.

Q. What sort of the data would you be interested in? RPMs? Things like?
ANDY MURRAY: That's the thing, isn't it? If I say I want to improve the speed on my first serve, you know, it's great to have the ability to do that. My whole career I've only done it one time because it's really tough to get good speed guns to do that in practice, to measure how hard you're serving if that's something you're trying to improve or look at.

So that would be something. If it's your net clearance, how high you're hitting the ball over the net, things like that, yeah, I mean, you can do all sorts. It's whatever you're trying to work on. It's a good way of seeing if you're doing the things that you're coach is asking you to do and if your practices are actually paying off.

If you're trying to improve the height over the net and you're working on stuff all the time and you go and test it and it's not making a difference, you can change what you're doing to make it better.

Q. Off-court question. Have you got the gold medal with you? Where are your Wimbledon trophies? Will this gold medal be alongside the other one on show at the house?
ANDY MURRAY: The gold medal is here with me. I've got in the hotel. Then my wife kind of decides what happens with the trophies. The medals I think are in the safe at home, and then the Wimbledon trophies, the last time I was home they were out. They sort of get moved and put in different places and stuff.

But, yeah. Nothing else to say. They're kind of everywhere.

Q. I suppose they don't need much polishing.
ANDY MURRAY: They do actually.

Q. Does Kim do that or do you do that?
ANDY MURRAY: We haven't actually done it. Neither of us have done it, because of one from 2013 is a bit -- a little bit rusty. I was actually saying this before we left. When the two of them were next to each other, yeah, they could do with a bit of a clean.

Q. Just curious, I think it was the very last time you played Kevin was at the US Open, which was quite the match. Completely clean slate coming into tonight. How do you approach it when you're coming off a loss against a certain player?
ANDY MURRAY: Yeah, it was obviously one year ago pretty much, and a lot happened in the last year. Kevin has had some tough injuries to deal with this year and is starting to sort of gradually get back to the level he was playing at last year. It takes time.

For me, I'm coming off the back of the best few months of my career, so it's kind of different, slightly different circumstance. And also in a slam there is a little bit more riding on it as well. It was a very tough loss for me at the time and I learnt a lot from it as well.

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